I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna
Or on any river for that matter
To be perfectly honest

Not in July or any month
Have I had the pleasure--if it is a pleasure--
Of fishing on the Susquehanna

I am more likely to be found
In a quiet room like this one--
A painting of a woman on the wall

A bowl of tangerines on the table--
Trying to manufacture the sensation
Of fishing on the Susquehanna

There is little doubt
That others have been fishing
On the Susquehanna

Rowing upstream in a wooden boat
Sliding the oars under the water
Then raising them to drip in the light

But the nearest I have ever come to
Fishing on the Susquehanna
Was one afternoon in a museum in Philadelphia

When I balanced a little egg of time
In front of a painting
In which that river curled around a bend

Under a blue cloud-ruffled sky
Dense trees along the banks
And a fellow with a red bandanna

Sitting in a small, green
Flat-bottom boat
Holding the thin whip of a pole

That is something I am unlikely
Ever to do, I remember
Saying to myself and the person next to me

Then I blinked and moved on
To other American scenes
Of haystacks, water whitening over rocks

Even one of a brown hare
Who seemed so wired with alertness
I imagined him springing right out of the frame